NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Feb 7, 2014) - Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer has joined the list of luminaries who will speak at this year's 4A's Transformation conference in Los Angeles from March 16-19, the trade association announced today. "Transformation 2014: The Idea Effect" will shed light on the issues affecting the advertising, media, tech and publishing industries.

Branding, Data, social responsibility, and entrepreneurship are among the major themes this year, and a significant number of client-side marketers and technology company execs have signed on as speakers.

Agencies and brand marketers are amassing troves of data and continue to crack the code on making sense of it. At least one panel will focus on how agencies' ideas drive brand value and measurable sales, and John Montgomery, COO of GroupM, is scheduled to speak about audience, addressability, measurement and mobile.

Nancy Hill, President-CEO of the 4A's, will moderate a panel about why corporations must be socially responsible world citizens. Bea Perez, Chief Sustainability Officer at Coca-Cola; Icema Gibbs, Director, Corporate Social Responsibility at JetBlue; and Hill Holiday CEO Karen Kaplan are scheduled panelists.

"Our research these last couple of years shows that corporate responsibility and entrepreneurship are two important issues to young professionals," Hill said. "For our industry to attract the best talent, we must have a voice and active participation in both areas."

Another conference feature will be a video exhibit, created by Leo Burnett, which last year won the 4A's TruthBrief Competition for the best agency campaign to attract a new generation of talent to the business. Leo Burnett's winning experiential campaign took the form of a staged a video "art show" at a gallery on a college campus in which all of the pieces being shown were advertisements stripped of their logos. The exhibit is being moved to the Beverly Hilton for Transformation 2014.

As part of the entrepreneurial theme, the conference will also feature a "Best in Breed" contest for among 10-15 startup company ideas that will be judged by Terry Kawaja, Founder and CEO of LUMA Partners; media veteran Wenda Harris Millard, and Hany Nada, Managing Partner at GGV Capital.

The 4A's will also announce winners of the O'Toole Awards for creative campaigns and media.

Click here for more information. To register, click here. And don't forget to follow #4astransformation for real-time content coming out of the event.

About the 4A'sThe 4A's is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. Its membership comprises virtually all of the large, multinational agencies and hundreds of small and mid-sized agencies from across the country. The 1,200 member agency offices served by the 4A's employ 65,000 people; offer a wide range of marketing communications services, and place 80 percent of all national advertising. The management-oriented association founded in 1917 helps its members build their businesses, and acts as the industry's spokesperson with government, media, and the public sector. For more information, visit the 4A's Web site at www.aaaa.org.